


Giri

by ayellowbirds



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Genderfluid Saotome Ranma, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayellowbirds/pseuds/ayellowbirds
Summary: Most Ranma fans have wished it would happen, after everything the old man did. If it happened right before the start of the manga, though?
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	1. After All This Time, Here's Ranma

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up with a sinus headache and the urge to start on this instead of getting my current Ranma fic ready for posting. We'll see where this goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits posted 12/24/2020, 01/09/2021 with help from archosaur_automaton

There was a new chill in the air as Akane jogged back home amidst the puddles of an early rain shower, her breath hanging in the cold air. 

Summer had seemed to drag on into winter with only the most gradual changes in the daily climate, and between the jarring briskness and the time to herself, she found her mind was more focused on reflection than training. 

It had been over three months since her father had called her and her sisters together to announce that an old friend was coming to visit, a man named Saotome Genma. And more, that Genma was bringing his son Ranma, and that her father Soun had long ago made a binding agreement with Genma that their families would intermarry, to carry on the twin branches of the Musabetsu Kakuto tradition under a unified line.

Over three months, and no sign of the Saotomes.

Soun had started out dismissive about the absence. He would half-tell stories about their youth when something reminded him of the expected visit, waving the delay off as Genma’s usual antics. He’d get to a questionable-sounding point in the story, and then would seem to remember he was speaking to his own daughters, before simply laughing and returning to whatever he had been doing before.

In mid-September, dismissiveness turned to frustration. Her father’s frustration, less spoken than felt, had begun to transfer to the rest of the family. Akane found herself less and less tolerant of the usual frustrations at school, the mobs of boys and Kuno’s egotistical obsessions. Kasumi started experimenting in the kitchen more, and Akane often returned from school to find piles of cookbooks from the local library, meticulously bookmarked. Strange fruits and vegetables, dinners with foreign flavors and odd innovations, and the sound of cooking programs on television became the norm. 

It was when Nabiki’s usually mercantile nature took on a hard edge that things _really_ started to change.

Akane knew that Nabiki often interacted with Kuno, as the two of them were in the same class. She suspected that she had even helped fan the flames of his delusions in order to turn a profit.

But one day as September turned to October, she’d stepped into a stairwell just in time to hear the echo of a hand striking a cheek, and looked up to see Kuno tumble backwards down the stairs. As he landed in a heap, dozens of 1000 yen bills fluttered through the air.

At the top of the next flight of stairs, Nabiki watched the money settle onto the ground, and left.

Various rumors floated for a while after that. Exactly what Kuno had asked for was the subject of disagreement, but the consensus was that it had somehow been too far even for the middle Tendo sister. 

Kuno had sulked for a time, and seemed to begin to take his role as the kendo club captain more seriously. When Yuka had chanced to ask him about it a couple weeks later, he had waved it off.

“My own mistake was to approach the sister in regards to the maiden, but Kuno Tatewaki shall not err in like manner again,” was all he said before excusing himself to practice.

The following week, the Furinkan High School kendo club had placed first in a regional tournament, and were set to go to the national stage. Akane remembered walking in to catch the announcement on the local news, in which an excited reporter caught Kuno and a pair of his teammates off guard.

“It is meet that I should be recognized thus,” Kuno said as he wiped his brow with a hand towel, ignoring the microphone and turning towards the locker room. “I can do no less in order to prove myself to all the world, afore I seek my prize proper.

The reporter started to ask a question, but the remote was in Nabiki’s hand, and she changed the channel.

Akane hated to admit it, but that had been the point at which her own mood had begun to change. She’d felt frustrated at her father’s willingness to hand one of his own daughters off to a boy he’d never even met, for the sake of a promise he made when he was barely an adult himself. She had poured herself back into her training; at first, just to channel the frustrations.

Then, for something to keep her out of the house, as Soun’s nervous chuckles turned grouchy.

And then, when she saw that _boy_ who had harassed her so much at school, _that_ boy winning public acclaim, she had done it to prove herself.

She paused at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, in spite of the silent morning street.

Prove herself… to someone? To herself, or to her father? She had settled on the idea that it was to prove herself worthy as sole heir to the Musabetsu Kakuto school, to show that such a marriage of obligation was unnecessary. 

With some reluctance on his part, she had even managed to convince her father to return to teaching her, something that had lapsed over the years as he had become more focused on his involvement in community affairs.

By the end of October, Akane was entering tournaments herself. Not because of Kuno, or a need to prove herself better than him. Certainly not. 

It hadn’t been easy to find a stage on which to compete, admittedly. Musabetsu Kakuto was not well-recognized in the martial arts community, and those who did know it seemed to mostly disdain it. She had found her way into mixed tournaments where those attitudes prevailed even among practicioners of other schools that incorporated techniques from multiple styles.

Her total success in her first tournament had not helped the attitudes, nor had Nabiki’s insistence that they promote her as a “dark horse” thereafter.

She had wanted to prove that the style was competitively viable, and worth teaching and learning. That _she_ was worthy. Not to become some special attraction because she mixed Shorinji Kenpo with Judo, Bajiquan, Aikido, Baguazhang, Karate, Hung Ga, even sumo. She’d bristled when Nabiki got her into mixed-gender matchups, annoyed by the fast pace that left her weekends tight through November.

But she had to admit, there was a satisfaction in victory and recognition. People had started to not only recognize _her_ at events, but recognize her school. For the first time since she was little, there were other students at the Tendo Dojo, and her father had returned to proper instruction.

Now, on a chill morning in early December, she approached the next crossing. As she did, she caught sight of her shadow on the wall, and paused to box it for a time, punching and elbow striking in place. It wasn’t until she caught sight of the red of the stoplight and the crossing indicator blinking at her that she realized she had an audience.

She wiped her brow on her gi, and turned to look. 

Three people her own age stood there. Two had strangely colorful hair, both dressed in a Chinese style. The other, a tall and rough-looking boy, wore a sleeveless top and carried a traditional umbrella over his head. All three strangers bowed slightly, and Akane acknowledged them in turn.

“Good morning,” she said, and looked up. The two shorter people—well, one was clearly a young woman, about Akane’s own age but with looks that made her immediately self-conscious. As the girl’s long purple hair swayed with her movements, Akane reached up to feel the ponytail she’d taken to wearing her own hair in.

“Good morning,” the others responded, the purple-haired girl with a noticeable accent. Akane caught a glimpse of her darting her elbow out at her red-haired companion with surprising speed and subtlety, the sort of thing she might have missed a few months back in her training.

“I,” the redhead begain, then looked up. Akane wasn’t sure of the person’s gender; they were the shortest of the three, dressed in baggy green clothes that seemed to suggest a figure almost as enviable as the other girl’s, but the cut of their clothes was male from what Akane could tell. They carried theirself with a more typically masculine stance and spoke with a slightly forced-sounding depth to their voice, and they were using the roughly mannish pronoun _‘ore’_. “I see that you are a martial artist.”

Akane looked to the person’s face. Blue eyes, more tired than the youthfulness of those other features would suggest. There was a weight in that expression and posture. “Yes, I am. How can I assist you?”

The redhead sighed, seeming to shrink into themselves with a weariness that Akane felt even through the invigoration of her jog.

“Do you….” they began, and scratched at their sidelocks, looking up to the other two.

The boy looked back down, and then up to Akane. “Do you know where we could find the Tendo Dojo?”

Wonderful, Akane thought, more prospective new students. Sure, they looked a bit odd, but she had started to meet even stranger in her matches. There was that boy with the giant spatula, for example.

“I was just heading back there,” she said, putting her best ‘daughter of the sensei’ smile on. “Would you like to come with me? I’m sure father would be happy to speak to you about lessons.”

The redhead seemed to jump back slightly. “Fa—your father?”

“Yes,” Akane replied, bowing more deeply now. “Tendo Akane, heir to the Tendo school of Musabetsu Kakuto, age 16. I would be happy to show you the way.”

There was a shuffling of feet, and Akane looked up. The redhead was looking back and forth between the others, who were prodding them gently.

“Go on,” said the boy. “This is why—”

“进行, 问吧” added the girl giving the shortest companion a push. Akane knew a bit of Chinese from training and studying, but none of it conversational.

“好, 好 珊撲,” came the response. Was that English? Something about _Shampoo?_. 

Akane stopped wondering about it when the redhead dropped to their knees in a gesture of apology. Their voice came out cracked, strained and high as they lowered their head. 

“I… I’m Saotome Ranma. I am so, so sorry about this.”


	2. Ranma's Not-So-Secret

Akane led the trio through the front door, into the genkan, and glanced down. There were still three sets of shoes there, which meant that nobody had left. She sighed, and shifted the weight on her feet as if it would lift the emotional burden that had just been laid upon her. She turned to the three visitors, who were hesitating at the doorway.

“You can come in, but…” she hestitated, searching for the right words. “I need to break this to my father first. I’m sorry, can you wait here?”

Ranma nodded, as did the tall boy, who had introduced himself as Hibiki Ryoga, a former classmate of Ranma. They slipped off their shoes, and leaned back against the wall. The girl, Shampoo, followed suit after watching them.

Akane entered the house and began seeking out her family, calling out to them. She met Nabiki coming down the stairs, looking like she had just woken up.

“What’s up?” her elder sister asked, scratching her belly and staring through bleary eyes. “You look like you lost your favorite training dummy.”

Akane huffed. “It’s serious, Nabiki. Do you know where Dad and Kasumi are?”

Nabiki pointed with each hand in a different direction. “Dad’s out on the engawa having some tea, onee-chan’s in the kitchen making breakfast. You’re the only human in Tokyo who is outside this early.”

Akane glared, and Nabiki matched her with an unflinching stare, that softened after a moment. She turned, looking up at the ceiling in what she probably thought was a contemplative pose.

“Well, at least that insane dedication is winning you some fights, and the purses to go with them,” Nabiki added. “Plus, all the attention’s finally getting us some income from the dojo.”

“Whatever,” Akane said, turning towards the kitchen. “Can you go let dad know I need to talk to everyone out there? It’s _serious._ ”

“Yes ma’am, miss master martial artist,” Nabiki saluted, casually brushing two fingers against her brow with a wave. 

Akane made her way into the kitchen. The scent of _baked goods_ came through the air, and she arrived to find Kasumi pulling a fresh loaf out of the oven. 

“Good morning, Akane,” Kasumi said, without turning to look. The kitchen was as much her space as the dojo was Akane’s, and each of them knew the sounds and sensations of those rooms well enough to identify a visitor by footfall alone. “Today we’re having bread with jam, and English-style tea.”

Akane missed when breakfast was a bowl of miso, some natto, rice, vegetables, and a bit of grilled fish. She even missed the pickles. Kasumi’s cooking was still excellent, it was just so _unfamiliar_ lately. “Oh… thank you. But could I ask you to come with me? There’s something important I need to talk to everyone about. I don’t think it can wait.”

Kasumi looked into her eyes for a moment, and then nodded, setting the bread securely down on the countertop. “Of course, Akane.”

The duo arrived at the hallway outside of the main room to find Nabiki flat on her back, reading a magazine while Soun sat facing the yard, a cup of tea cooling in his hands. Akane couldn’t help but notice that the cup was still completely full.

“I’m sorry, everyone,” Akane said as she came and sat down beside her father. He turned to look at her, raising an inquisitve eyebrow.

“What’s the matter, Akane dear?” he asked, setting the milk-diluted tea aside and turning to face her.

Akane hesitated, choosing her words carefully.

“I met someone while I was out on my run,” she began. “And I… received some news.”

She cast her eyes down onto the floor, and felt herself reflexively start a breathing exercise. Knowing her father, this could easily turn into a near-catatonic catastrophe of crying if she chose the wrong way to put it, but it felt like the only way was to put it as clearly as possible.

“Saotome Genma,” she began, and saw her father’s eyebrows lift in a cautiously optimistic expression that made her next words all the more difficult, “has passed on.”

Amidst the silence, a bird noisly took flight outside.

“Ah,” her father responded after what felt like far too long. “How…?”

“A training accident, in China,” she repeated. “Out near Mount Kensei. He took a bad fall from a great height.”

There was more silence. Soun shifted, and turned away from his daughters, facing out towards the koi pond.

His voice came very softly, almost so quiet she wasn’t sure she heard him. “Who told you?”

At this, she rose a bit, glad to have something remotely positive to say.

“Ranma came to town,” she explained, and hesitated for a moment, thinking. She had been told that Genma had a _son_ , after all. But she still wasn’t entirely sure of the gender of the person she had met, who had changed personal pronouns mid-way through their walk, when conversation about the area turned more everyday and mundane. The ‘ore’ had turned to _watashi_ , and Ranma’s whole demeanor seemed to shift, down to the way the redhead walked.

She settled on avoiding pronouns altogether. “Ranma and some... traveling companions are waiting outside. Would you like to speak with them?”

Soun nodded, slowly.

Akane rose, and went to meet Ranma and the others. Behind her, Kasumi shuffled into the kitchen, excusing herself to put on some water for the guests as well.

“Saotome-san?” Akane called from around the corner, seeing one, two, and three heads peek out from the genkan. “Yes, Hibiki-san, Shampoo-san as well. My father is ready to see you, if you’d like.”

Ranma nodded, and stepped out, followed by Shampoo, with Ryoga trailing behind. The taller boy seemed to be having some trouble with his shoulders, if the way he rolled them and shifted his arms was any indication.

“Right this way,” Akane gestured.

Ranma started to pass, then stopped, looked down at the floor, and then to Akane. “...how’s he taking it?”

Akane guessed her expression said it all, as Ranma simply nodded. As the trio passed, Akane took note of the bunched-up muscles visible through the edges of Ryoga’s sleeveles top. A _lot_ of tension, there.

“Hibiki-san?” she asked, struck by the urge to do a kindness for a stranger. The boy looked to her. There was something more mature in his expression than the boys she knew from school, something more experienced and worldly. 

“Yes, Tendo-san?” he asked.

“If it is not too forward, you appear to be having difficulty with your shoulders or neck,” she said out loud, now looking away. For a boy who looked close to her own age, he had a certain handsomeness. Really, the whole trio of visitors was uncommonly, almost unfairly attractive, even amidst their understandable difficulties and sorrow. She felt shameful for thinking about it, and continued, “there is an excellent chiropractor in the area, if you plan to stay long.”

Ryoga stared at her for a moment, as Ranma and Shampoo continued ahead.

“That is very kind of you, Tendo-san,” he said, turning his face slightly away. He seemed to be blushing a bit, but then he raised his head abruptly at the sound of a noise from the kitchen. “You’ve got hot water ready?”

“My sister is making some tea, though I should tell you it might not be what you’re used to,” Akane explained. Especially if the trio had been travelling across China all this time.

Ryoga nodded, and then seemed to think, bringing his hand up to bite his thumb. “This is going to sound strange, but could I borrow two cups of the hot water, and two of cold water?

Akane blinked, and found herself nodding slowly. She led the way into the kitchen, and got Kasumi’s attention.

“Sis, this is Hibiki Ryoga-san,” she explained as an introduction. “Hibiki-san, this is my elder sister, Kasumi. Ryoga is...”

Ryoga coughed into his fist, and seemed to blush again. “I’m an... old friend of Ranma’s. We met up in China, and we’ve been helping each other on the way back to Japan. I’m sorry to impose, but could I borrow two cups each of hot water and cold water?”

Kasumi beamed at him, and began retrieving appropriate cups. “Welcome, Hibiki-san. We have plenty of tea, if it’s your preference to steep it yourself. Wuyi, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Bai Mudan, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Pu-Erh, Lapsang Souchong, Mint, Rooibos….”

Ryoga held his hands up, looking as dizzy as Akane felt. “Just the water, please. Sorry.”

Akane followed behind him as they entered the main room, holding the cold water glasses while Ryoga held a small teapot in one hand, and two little mugs in the other. She just caught just the end of a part of conversation.

“...through his effects, and then I found a postcard addressed to you,” Ranma explained, “I guess that he had messed it up, because it was all crossed out except your name and address. Maybe he hadn’t gotten around to throwing it out, I dunno.”

Her father nodded along, and pulled out a familiar postcard, which he carefully passed to Ranma, holding it like it was something precious. “I had received this, in August.”

Ranma looked over it, turning it gently in their hands. Shampoo, seated beside them, laid a cautious hand on the Saotome heir’s shoulder. 

“你还好吧，我的爱人?” she asked, and then seemed to startle a bit, as if realizing where she was, and looked around before saying, slowly and carefully, “Ranma, you are alright?”

Ranma nodded, though Akane thought she could see the glint of tears.

“Yeah, it’s just,” a sniff, and a gulp. “The old man never could write worth a darn.”

Akane sat down next to Nabiki as Kasumi came in with a tray of snacks and a more proper offering of tea. Akane set the glasses on the table, and caught the inquisitive expression Nabiki shot her. She shrugged.

Ryoga cleared his throat, and everyone turned to look at him.

“I figured you might want to, uh,” he said, alternating lifting the small teapot, and the mugs, “demonstrate? Am I too late?”

“...no,” Ranma sighed, and stood up. “Tendo-san. Like I said, my dad… _passed_ in an accident while we were training in western China.”

They reached for one of the mugs, and Ryoga began pouring into it from the teapot. “The place we trained is called, ‘Zhòuquánxiāng’. ‘Jusenkyo’, in Japanese.”

The name sounded distantly familiar to Akane, but she couldn’t place it. She looked to her father. “Dad?”

“I think I’ve heard of it,” he said. “A legendary training ground visited only by the fiercest warriors, yes?”

“That’s what the old man said, too,” Ranma sighed, grabbing at their collar. “Turns out, the reason it’s so obscure is cuz the whole place is full of cursed springs. For instance, I was born a boy….”

With a yank, Ranma pulled apart the button-down shirt to reveal an astonishingly deep cleavage. Akane felt blood rush to her face, and told herself it was just shock.

“You don’t look like one,” Nabiki said, breaking the silence. “I thought people got that operation in Thailand, not China?”

Ranma grinned sheepishly, still openly displaying… herself. “The way things are, that probably wouldn’t work on me. Since I fell in the Spring of Drowned Girl, I’m stuck as a girl…”

She upended the mug above her head, and Akane was shocked to see the figure before her dramatically change. Almost a full head taller in height, noticeably broader-shouldered and with dark black hair where it was once red, and the reveal of bare chest now only showed muscular pecs. The person before her continued in a completely different voice that couldn’t be faked with acting, “unless I get hit with hot water, in which case I turn back into a guy.”

_He_ turned to stare at Ryoga, a bit of steam rising from his hair and his skin looking a little red. “ _Hot_ water, Ryo-kun, remember? Not _scalding_.”

Ryoga sniffed. “I’m supposed to figure you wouldn’t check it yourself? You could have waited for it to cool a bit.”

“I see,” Soun observed, inspecting one of the glasses of cold water. “You said only hot water reverses the curse? Then, to restore it….”

Nabiki scooped up the other glass, and tossed its contents Ranma’s way, incidentally splashing the wall behind him. Now, the redheaded girl was back, and the partially unbuttoned top had slipped down even further, to the point that Soun made a choking noise. Ranma yelped, and covered herself up with crossed arms. All the same, Akane felt the need to look away.

“Cold water, eh?” Nabiki observed. 

“Yes,” Ranma growled, and looked to Ryoga. “Can I get some more of that? I’m feeling—yanno. Like that, right now.”

“Sure,” Ryoga sighed, handing the pot over to Ranma, who poured it into the mug again, who this time tested its heat with a finger before splashing himself. “Just don’t use all of it in one go, the way these things go…”

“I know, I know,” Ranma waved it off. Now a boy again, he sat down on the floor, and looked to Akane and her family. “It’s a _curse,_ right? Seems like I don’t just get splashed when I want to, but like it happens when it would be inconvenient or a problem.”

Shampoo nodded, and spoke up, again seeming to choose her words carefully, slowly, and seeming to count repeatedly on her fingers. “From where I met Ranma and also Ryoga, to here, Ranma has been made to change against their will in places where it is a problem... one hundred and thirty-eight times. Over two and one half months of travel. Ryoga….”

Akane caught a glimpse of Hibiki shaking his head wildly, gesturing as if to say, ‘no, no, shut up!’.

Shampoo snorted. “You have to show them eventually.”

“You mean,” Akane asked, looking from Ranma to Ryoga, “you’re cursed to turn into a girl, too?”

“Not exactly,” Ryoga responded, just before he realized that Soun had risen to his feet and was dumping the other glass on his head from the side. He gaped, soaking. “What’d you—”

Ryoga looked back at Akane, Kasumi, and Nabiki; Akane had found herself jumping back to the other side of the room with her sisters at the sight of Ryoga’s cursed form.

Yes, like Ranma, Ryoga’ cursed form was female, and had certain resemblances to his original body. But the differences outweighed the similarities by far.

Six arms where there were once two, ferocious, slit-pupiled eyes, and long fangs. On top of all of it, sprouting out from the side of a now much more ferocious-looking face, were two more heads.

“Āxiūluōnìquán,” Shampoo explained, leaning across the table and taking a cup of tea from where Kasumi had set it down. “Spring of Drowned Ashura Warrior Goddess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still feeling crummy, so I banged out another 2513 words. How are people feeling about these short chapters?  
> Edits posted 01/09/2021 with help from archosaur_automaton


	3. Accursed Legendary Training Grounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here comes the character death part. This is a heavy subject, so don't expect much of the usual Ranma levity for a while.

Once Ryoga had managed to revert to his human—and masculine—form, things calmed down a bit, and the Tendo family and their three visitors sat together at the table, discussing the nature of the curse.

“Well that is certainly very shocking,” Kasumi observed, handing out filled teacups. At least it was green tea, this time. “I was not aware such things existed.”

“Yeah, Dad, gotta say you’re taking this all in stride,” Nabiki observed, looking to her father, who seemed lost in thought. Akane had a guess why.

“Dad, did you… know about this?” she asked. Even being the one who brought Ranma and the others to the house, she was feeling shaky about it. A magical gender change was one thing, but to turn into something wholly inhuman? She wouldn’t have even thought anatomy like that was physically possible.

Soun shook his head slowly, firmly. 

“I knew that—” his throat caught, and he paused, inhaling the scent of his tea. “I knew that Saotome had been exploring obscure training methods. Certainly, we had seen our share of strangeness in our… own training. But nothing like this.”

He looked up at Ranma and Ryoga, seeming to consider their now, by Akane’s reluctant admission, fairly handsome looks.

“It’s really not _so_ bad, then, is it?” he said before taking a sip of tea. “You can still be men.”

Ryoga nodded firmly, but Akane could have sworn Ranma did les so. Well, he _was_ still in mourning. And Shampoo seemed… inscrutable. There was something she couldn’t place in that expression.

“Yeah,” Ryoga replied, leaning back and rolling his shoulders. “I guess it could be worse. I could’a turned into a cat, or a duck, or—I dunno, something crazy like a little piglet. And Ranma….”

He looked at his companion, and leaned a little closer to him, like he was saying something confidential, but loud enough for the rest of the room to hear him.

“How didja put it? You ‘lost worse things than your manhood’?” Ryoga asked. 

Was it Akane’s imagination? Well, no. Of course, that expression made sense. Ranma had lost his father. That’s all it meant.

Ranma let out a long, deep sigh.

“So, yeah. The way it went down….”

_Ranma remembered the sight of his father disappearing into the water below the bamboo poles, and the animal that came out, wearing his dogi and glasses, adopting the same stance that his father had dropped into countless times before._

_The guide was explaining, something about a panda that fell into the same water thousands of years ago. Was this black and white bear really his old man in a new body? He was about to say something in reaction, but the creature was lunging._

_If it was an ordinary fight, he might have jumped into the air. The Saotome school of Musabetsu Kakuto emphasized aerial combat, and that was the reason they’d come to Jusenkyo in the first place. There had been other, similar training grounds before; Genma had been insistent that Ranma be able to keep his balance amidst a heavy storm on a point no wider than three toes, though he rarely achieved such stability himself._

_The thought of all the training, the frustration of it, welled up in him._

_Why did he have to do things his dad’s way, all the time? He was sixteen years old, damn it! He didn’t have much time being a normal guy, but he’d seen enough of how other boys his age lived, even other martial artists. It was ridiculous, and the thoughts that had been repeating over weeks and months of travel through back country China reached their breaking point._

_Instead of doing like he was taught and taking to the air, Ranma held his place, dropping down to hug the pole like a koala in a tree._

_His panda-father sailed overhead, clipping the top of the pole with his increased volume, and past Ranma. A confused animal noise pierced the air, something Ranma had never heard before. It wasn’t like he spent a lot of time around pandas, after all._

_A sigh of relief._

_He turned to look back, moving to jump towards a lower pole he had spotted in the instant he dropped down._

_And then, the crack, as the ancient pole gave way. Later, he thought it might have been his weight, or it might have been his dad hitting it. It might have been any number of things, and none of them important._

_He fell, into the water. He heard the splash around him, the sound of bubbles escaping from his own body, and pushed himself upward. It was actually a pretty shallow pool._

_But he must’ve hit the bottom wrong, because his body felt strange._

_He looked around, and something at the corner of his vision was off. Red?_

_He reached up, and found bangs of a different color. And his arms felt… wrong. Shorter, different. He felt his face, and thought,_ did I turn into an animal, too? _But that was human skin on his face, and he could see it on his arms and hands, and when he looked down, he saw—_

 _What was wrong with his chest? Were those… breasts? Was that what they looked like from this angle? What were they doing on_ his _body?_

_He scrambled out of the water, and looked around for the guide._

_“Hey, what’s going on, is this another—” he jumped at the sound of his own voice, completely different. It felt_ weird _to speak at his usual register, like he was straining his throat. He looked around again, and spotted the guide next to his father, who was sitting on the ground._

_He stood up, and stormed over._

_“What’s the idea of this, old man! Do you have any idea what you’ve done to—” he began to rant, and then felt a chill worse than the cold water soaking his gi, a wrongness worse than his body being several inches shorter with wider hips and narrower shoulders._

_The animal that his father had turned into wasn’t sitting on the ground, it was slumped. The guide was—was he checking his pulse? Reaching up to feel his nose, and… necks weren’t supposed to bend that way, even on a panda, as far as Ranma knew._

_“...Dad?”_

“I was so mad at him, for so long,” Ranma said, pausing in his story to set aside what was probably now a completely cold cup of untouched tea. “And at myself, and… I don’t know. It shouldn’t have happened that way. We shouldn’t have been there.”

Kasumi had leaned in close to comfort their father, while Nabiki held his hand tight from her seat.

Akane, for her part, found herself practically wearing holes into the hem of her gi, her fingers pressed tight into the fabric as she listened. Even in a normal training environment, there was always that small chance of injury. Heck, there was that chance getting out of your bed, or going to the store. Someone could get tangled up in their sheets and tumble, someone could slip on litter. It was realistic, that chance, and it was _terrifying_ to think about.

And of course, there was something to be said for the risk that all martial artists faced, even in matches adhering to strict rules. Even outside of sports combat like boxing.

And even in the dojo. She remembered times that she’d sprained her wrist, twisted her ankle, any number of small mistakes even when she was at her most focused. 

For an already sobering morning, it was an exceptionally heavy feeling.

And at the same time, there was so much strangeness about it all, that it felt unreal. Sure, it was a world where unexpected accidents happened. She knew that all too well, knew how mortal humans were, from personal experience.

But it was now also a world where people could change sex or even turn into mythical demons with a splash of water.

She looked over at Ranma. This bizarre boy who had had the body of a girl when she’d met him, this person who had faced so much trauma and strangeness. Who had traveled across an entire country to get here, to share the news that had broken his world.

At the same age she was. She looked across at him, and caught his eyes. A lot of pain, a familiar pain, with an undercurrent of anger she knew too well.

Abruptly, Ranma looked down and away.

“I,” he began, using _watashi_ again, “looked through his stuff, after a couple days. The guide let me stay at his place outside of Jusenkyo… said it was the least he could do. Helped me find someone who could, yanno, take care of everything. I dunno if I did it right, the old—nobody showed me how. That was around when I ran into Ryo-kun.”

He looked to the other cursed boy, with a wry smile twisted by pain. Ryoga’s expression was harder to read. Akane could see sympathy, ego,frustration.

“Wouldja believe he was there to challenge me to a fight? Followed me clear across China.”

“Well,” Ryoga coughed into his hand, his expression changing to something like embarassment, “it didn’t seem right to do it, under the circumstances, I figured.”

Ranma laughed bitterly, and then looked then to Shampoo, whose expression was more plainly sympathetic to Akane’s eyes. “Shampoo’s from the village where they did the, you know….”

Abruptly, Ranma straightened up, and then bowed deeply towards Akane’s father.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you without coming here in person,” he said, and before Soun could speak up, “but also… I want to inter his remains. Do you know if we’ve got a family grave?”

Akane heard her father’s voice catch in his throat, and she wasn’t surprised. What she _was_ surprised was that Ranma knew so little about his own family. And it sounded like he didn’t know much about funerary customs, either.

“Yes,” Soun said, softly. “It’s a bit of a trip from here, but….”

He looked to his daughters, in turn, and then to Ranma and his friends.

“If you don’t mind waiting for me to prepare, we can go together.”


	4. Back to Basics

Waiting for Soun to prepare had meant the better part of a day, it turned out. There was travel planning to be done, and an inn nearby. Akane’s father had said he remembered the general area from when he and Genma were training together, although he would need to see about the exact location and how to get them all there.

“Honestly? I kinda figured we’d walk there,” Ranma replied when asked about his original arrangements. "We're kinda short on money for the train."

Nabiki flicked a folded travel map at him. “It’s a 24-hour walk in a straight line, and even with those biceps, I don’t think you _or_ bandanna-boy _or_ China girl here can dig that fast through the landscape, especially if you just got back to Japan.”

“Nabiki!” Akane snapped, and swept her arm to indicate the newcomers. She felt like she might have been cutting off something Ryoga was about to say, but she was furious. “They might be weird, but they’re _guests!_ And in case you forgot, _in mourning?_ ”

At this last part, she dropped her voice to what she was pretty sure was a whisper, but the look that the others gave her made her rethink that. Especially Ranma’s expression.

“ _I_ know,” Nabiki said in response, staring daggers at her before turning to stand, and walk towards the doorway. “Or maybe _you_ forgot what it’s like for people left behind, huh?”

She paused just before leaving the room, and looked over her shoulder at Ranma.

“You think it will help anyone rest better if you let yourself waste away mourning them?” she asked, and left.

Akane gaped at the space her sister left behind, equal parts glad that her father and Kasumi hadn’t been in the room to hear it, and disgusted that Nabiki had gotten away with it. She turned back to Ranma.

“I’m sorry about that, she—” Akane began, feeling her fingernails pressing into her palms. She took a calming breath, and settled for growling into her own collar instead of letting the anger flood out. “I don’t understand her sometimes.”

“Nah, she’s probably right,” Ranma replied. Akane looked back up, and the boy—who was sometimes a girl, which was confusing—was looking back at his companions. His voice had a hoarse humor to it. “The old man wouldn’t want me to start sobbing about him, right?”

Ryoga snorted. “I remember the kind of lessons he taught you, if that’s what you mean. Not that it gets you off easy. We _are_ going to settle things, one day.”

“Aiyaa, we found enough proof coming here from Nǚjié village,” Shampoo responded, and began counting on her fingers, with each note seeming to make Ryoga’s sarcastic expression all the more smug. “Sixteen restaurant bills left to different restaurants, eighteen angry food cart vendors, three bad drawing wanted posters, two defaced cultural treasures of nature. I spend a lot of time translating for 爱人 _and_ this clumsy man.”

At this, she directed a smirk at Ryoga himself. The tall boy shrank so rapidly Akane wondered if he had another curse aside from that… _demon_. 

“But, it was even so very good practice for speaking Japanese, and I teached Ranma some Mandarin,” Shampoo said as she turned back to face Akane. “It is a much prettier language, better for talking about many things.”

Somewhere in Akane’s mind, the mental note that called Shampoo ‘quiet’ was crossed off and replaced with ‘egotistical’. She huffed. “Well, I’m _sure_ there are things Japanese is better at.”

“You don’t really wanna—” Ranma began, at the same time Ryoga added, “I don’t think—”

Shampoo rose to her feet by rolling up on her heels and almost bouncing into the air, standing over Akane and leaning down to inspect her with an expression that reminded Akane far too much of the way you look at something indescribable stuck on your shoe. “You think Japan better? How many generations you train in wushu? Ranma could not even name grandmaster, do _you know?_ ”

In point of fact, she’d asked, and been stonewalled. Her father seemed terrified to even discuss the idea. She didn’t want to say that, though, so she pushed her way up to meet the purple-haired girl and said, “how many do _you_ know?”

“Here she goes again,” Ranma sighed.

“Yep,” Ryoga added.

After a good few more minutes than she cared to admit, Akane had stormed out of the room herself, followed by Shampoo. The foreign girl was reciting her complete martial and ancestral heritage—they were apparently one and the same—and decided to insist that Akane hear all of it. Well, she was going to do something about it.

When Shampoo finally got to her mother and her father, she looked up at the interior of the Tendo Dojo itself.

“I-ro-ha?” she read aloud, examining the simple sign on the wall.

“Yeah, as in, a fancy pedigree doesn’t matter without a solid foundation,” Akane replied, sliding herself into a pose of challenge. All she could hear between her ears was the insult. “You want to insult my family? My school? My whole way of life?”

She was just like all those fancy fighters from the tournaments who thought their elite traditions meant they were better than Musabetsu Kakuto. That coming from a school that boasted generations of teachers meant they were better than _her_. Better than all the effort she’d put into the one thing she was good at.

“Did you hear her do that, Ryo-kun?” Ranma asked from the side of the dojo. Akane saw Ryoga shaking his head.

Whatever. What did it matter what boys thought? Or what boys who were sometimes girls, or demonesses, or… whatever!

“I’m not gonna put up with you walking in here and telling me you’re better than me…” she began, turning her stance into a ready one as Shampoo seemed to consider her, looking down at her.

“I walked in here because you walked in here, and I was following you,” Shampoo replied, and then grinned, “to say I am better than any martial artists here.”

“Then prove it!” Akane growled. Through the rage, she had enough presence of mind not to attack just yet. As angry as she was, she didn’t know what the other girl’s style was. She could have specialized in grappling and was goading her to get a grab when Akane made the first strike.

So, instead, she gestured with her open palm.

Shampoo nodded, and was a blur of violet.

The movement circling her was faster than Akane’s eyes could process right away, certainly not this close up. But defense in martial arts wasn’t just about seeing what your opponent _was_ doing. It was about cutting off what they _could_ do.

For example, with a leg sweep.

“Ah!” Shampoo gasped, though she hopped over the foot instead of loosing her balance, and somersaulted over Akane, tapping her shoulders for balance like she was some sort of obstacle instead of an opponent. 

But Akane was already turned to face her by the time she’d landed. The past couple months had been more rigorous training than usual, more actual matches. And that had been without getting into the weirder things, like Kuno’s crazy sister. 

And she’d gotten past all of those to be where she was now, on her own two feet. She wasn’t going to let this girl insult that effort.

She didnt watch for where Shampoo was moving. That would get her too distracted. She moved according to where someone faster than her _should_ move, to exploit gaps in her defense. 

Fundamentals. Build yourself up enough, and you would be undefetable.

The first hole she left in her defense was to test Shampoo’s response. The second was to respond to Shampoo testing her. The third was to make her overconfident.

And the fourth was to finish her.

In practice, the way it worked out was that she ‘barely’ redirected a high kick that might’ve felled her if she was three months less experienced. She followed this up as she saw the smirk in Shampoo’s eyes; the kick turned into a hooked leg to pull her down, and Akane used it to bring herself forward, taking the fall deliberately and tumbling just into Shampoo’s range on the opposite side. As Shampoo slammed at the floor with a heel that could have done some real damage (and did, in fact; Akane would need to repair the dojo after this), she used the momentum again to push herself into the air.

That was the moment Akane had been hoping for. She had discovered, lately, that she didn’t deal well with opponents who had an aerial advantage. It was such an absurd way to fight that she’d never considered it in her basic training; normal opponents couldn’t leap several times over your own height and attack from mid-air.

But several of the opponents she’d faced recently had been far from normal, so she’d needed a technique to face them with.

When Shampoo rose off the ground, Akane felt the change in the resistance of the floor before she actually saw Shampoo move. This was her chance, and to secure it, she called out the attack’s name to throw Shampoo off.

 **“猛昇撃墜!** ” came the cry, each syllable part of the movement. She leaped up to meet Shampoo, almost jumping into her, and caught her in a grab that added to the momentum.

Shampoo was on the ground before the final syllable.

Akane landed ready, just in case that wasn’t enough, but there was a sharp sound from the other side of the dojo. She looked over to see Ryoga whistling an end to the match, and Ranma gaping.

The two boys rose and scrambled over just as Shampoo got to her feet.

“You okay, Shan?” Ranma asked, while Ryoga offered Akane a look that projected cautious respect, and handed her what she assumed was a clean towel to wipe her brow.

 _“Moushou gekitsui?”_ Ryoga asked, confirming what she’d yelled. 

“Yeah,” she nodded, and looked down to Shampoo, who was on one knee. Ranma was saying something to her in halting Chinese, and she seemed to dislike what she was hearing. Akane took the opportunity to give the girl a smirk of her own. 

Shooting Down by Rising Fiercely.

If your opponent flies high, the idea went, then you needed to take out their wings.

She was so busy feeling smug about it, that she didn’t notice Shampoo coming almost nose-to-nose with her. This close, she noticed that there was something very off about the other girl’s hair, the way it met her brow. Ranma and Ryoga were panicking about something, but—

“Here, here,” Shampoo said, and offered her a handshake.

Akane looked down, and accepted the gesture.

There was a thudding sound from around her as Ranma and Ryoga both collapsed to the floor, looking relieved.

“For a second there, I thought she was gonna,” Ranma began, sighing and curling into himself. Akane couldn’t help but notice the watashi in there.

“...yeah,” Ryoga added. “Not going through that, again.”

“What are you talking about?” Akane wondered aloud, and looked to Shampoo. The other girl looked just as confused.

“Well, I guess it was just after I met up with Ryo-kun,” Ranma said, looking to the other boy, who cringed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akane's special technique is borrowed from one of the Ranma video games, "Chougi Ranbu Hen". Or rather, the name is; I wanted to give an accurate description, but as far as I can find, there's no footage of any players executing it, online.


	5. The Fires of Hatred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shan Pu remembers.

Shan Pu remembered the day very well, herself. She’d been training for the competition for months, ready to prove herself as the greatest warrior of the village in this generation.

Which was going to mean a lot, because the community name of “Tribe of Women Warriors” wasn’t just for show.

Usually, when outsiders heard 女傑族, they assumed it meant that _only_ the women were warriors. This idea wasn’t helped by the insistence by Westerners on translating their community’s identity as “Chinese Amazons”, a comparison to some sort of mythical figures from a small island country in the south of Europe. Shan Pu had read a summary of the myth in one of her Great-Grandmother’s books, but she hadn’t thought much of the idea.

How could you possibly have strong daughters if you had a strong mother and a weak, absent father? The whole point of their traditions were to _not_ imitate the rest of the world, where one parent was a warrior and the other tended to the house. _Every_ responsibility was shared in her community. Cooking, training children, cleaning, fighting monsters, hunting and farming, reminding toughs from other towns why you didn’t mess with her village… if there was something that needed doing, every member of the community was going to contribute. There would be no mentality of something being a “man’s job” or a “woman’s job”. 

Of course, that didn’t mean ignorance of the need to pay special attention to women’s training, what with the ever-encroaching climate of patriarchy from the ‘modern’ world. Which was why today’s tournament, focused on the young women of the village and its neighbors, was so important.

There were, as far as Shan Pu knew, three big reasons for it.

First, to celebrate and attract attention to the idea of women as warriors. Oh, sure, outsiders thought of it as something that _some_ women could do. But nobody in the rest of China ever really considered it as something _all women should do_. Thus, all village women of age participated, and the community joined in by making it into something of a cultural festival.

Second, to attract outsiders to the community’s way of thinking. Even with egalitarian values keeping more young people in the area by far than the national average, there was still some loss to the allure of new technology, the Han values that dominated media, and even opportunities in other countries. There were arguments about the best ways to do this; Shan Pu’s family favored the more radical approach of spreading their ways to the rest of the world, while conservative factions preferred the idea of drawing more people in.

And third, a village full of people who loved to fight was _always_ going to be down for a tournament.

So it came to be that the crowd had gathered for the final match numbered far more people than actually lived in the village, and was almost exclusively women.

All of them with their eyes on her, and her opponent.

If Shan Pu was being honest, she couldn’t remember the name of the girl. She was one of those outsiders who came to the village looking to prove herself, and not even one of the more interesting ones. She had spent some time in conversation with a very clever Uyghur girl who had been blending folk wrestling styles from the north and center of the continent, and her match against the young woman who practiced American-style boxing had been a satisfying challenge that had left her with a good deal of respect for that opponent. 

She’d been so lost in thought about the past battles, that she almost missed her opportunity to end this one. Planting her feet solidly to secure the opening she’d been given, she brought up the chúi in her left hand and sent her opponent well clear of the piste. 

Already, thoughts of the prior matches were fading, replaced with eagerness to take her prize. All that fighting worked up a killer appetite, after all. And she could see the food from where she stood… being shoveled into the mouths of a three-faced demon kept on a leash by a bored-looking girl in a Japanese-style training outfit. The girl was even idly snacking on a cob of corn herself!

Rage swelled up inside of Shan Pu, and her chúi smashed the table into splinters. Of all the indignities! The utter gall! It would have been one thing for an outsider to win the competition after properly entering according the village laws. That would have been fair, even if it wasn’t possible with _her_ among this year’s contestants. But to sneak in and start eating the winnings without even fighting?

“You there,” she yelled, and noticed an older man nearby, who seemed to begin translating. He looked familiar, somehow, but she couldn’t place him. “The mannerless girl with the pet monster, how _dare_ you steal what I have rightfully won?”

The girl had the audacity to come down from dodging her blow by _landing on her chúi_ , and staring vacantly. She said something in what Shan Pu guessed was Japanese, seemingly in response to the translation. The tone was so lackluster, but… there was something haunted in the girl’s eyes. Perhaps the demon was sapping her strength? All the more outrageous that she would intrude like this. Maybe she was drained of both her spirits _and_ her wits.

“This competition only comes once a year, and this time, _I_ am the rightful champion,” Shan Pu explained, as if to a little girl.

The demon grumbled something in the same tongue as the girl. Yes, that was definitely Japanese; the girl responded in kind, and then said something towards Shan Pu herself. The old man translated, “she asks whether that means that, if she faces you in battle, it will resolve the matter?”

Of course it would; Shan Pu could tell right away that this girl didn’t have what it took. Aside from the lethargic state she was in, she obviously relied on spirits and devils to fight for her. This wouldn’t be a match, it would be a punishment.

But the demon interceded.

“She says that her companion is in mourning and it would not be fair to fight,” the man translated again, “and insists that she was the one who consumed most of the food in the first place.”

It had begun to turn into an argument, evidently. The girl’s spirit was rising, and she quickly met the demon’s growls with fierceness of her own. The man, who seemed to be some sort of guide—there was something about that, nagging at her—was struggling to translate for each in turn, babbling almost nonsensically as he jumped from one to another. 

“Enough!” Shan Pu roared. She pointed to the demon, first, “I will fight you, monster, and then I will fight the one who keeps you on a leash, assuming that she is brave enough to face me thereafter!”

The translation came, a little more readily. At one of the words, the demon looked down at the lead trailing from its belt to the girl, snorted, and yanked it away to no small protest. If she couldn’t keep the creature under her control from stealing away its own leash, the girl couldn’t be much of a challenge herself. That was made all the more evident when she stomped away and sat down at the base of a nearby tree, fuming like a toddler denied a toy.

The demon leapt onto the beam, and settled into a ready stance as Shan Pu followed with no small satisfaction. This would be easy. She’d battled monsters before.

Well, perhaps not as easy as she thought. Mere seconds later, Shan Pu found herself struggling to dodge the enormously powerful blows of the creature, a challenge made all the more fearsome by there being a total of _six_ arms of which to keep track. 

On the upside, the creature didn’t really seem to know how to take advantage of that fact, itself, and fought more like a human who was suddenly equipped with too many weapons. A few of its strikes were wreathed with flame, but it did not seem to know how to conjure it reliably. Was it a demon _child?_ It seemed almost entirely new to its body, fighting as if it had a completely different one.

It was in the very instant in which that thought hit her, that Shan Pu recognized the man who had been with the girl and demon. That she remembered that he was the guide who lived at the cursed training grounds of Zhòuquánxiāng. That she realized, no, this was most likely a human _in the form_ of a demon.

And that was when the burning right cross glanced off behind her right ear.

Panic set in as she felt the heat spreading over her scalp, and she dove to the ground, struggling to quench the flames. If there was one thing she was as proud of as her martial arts skill, it was her hair. She’d made a point of taking excellent care of it, learning all the secrets of herbal medicine and traditional treatments that the hills and forests surrounding her home could offer.

So she knew just how fast hair could burn, if it accidentally caught fire. The smell seemed _everywhere_ , and even as someone threw a bucket of water over her, she knew it was too late.

The reflection she saw in the puddle at her knees was too much to bear, the reddening skin and patchy, tattered-looking remnants of years of attention and care, now sticking out at strange angles from her head like some sort of junkyard doll.

And worst of all, she was on the ground.

She had lost.

Shan Pu looked up at the monster. In all likelihood, just a normal human warrior who had gotten herself cursed, sure. But also, the monster who had stolen her prize, and stolen her hair. More than any outdated tradition, _her_ honor mattered right now.

She knew what she must do. 

She stood, ignoring the pain, took one of the demon’s three faces in her hands, and planted a kiss on its cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shan Pu's an interesting and challenging character to write. I have to admit that she competed pretty strongly for favorite character status when i was a teen watching the anime, but she's also pretty obviously based in stereotypes. For her perspective here, I've tried to lend a bit of what I've heard about her characterization in the Chinese dubs, where she instead speaks in antiquated language like someone from a period piece.


	6. Wild Horse, Keeping Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part wound up being a bit longer than i intended, and some stuff that i was originally planning to go into later on snuck in and became its own whole section.

For what felt like weeks, Ranma had been torn between fleeing in one direction away from the murderous girl from the Amazon village, and running in another after Ryoga. He had thought it was a pretty great plan when he’d hit on the idea of keeping a cord between himself and Ryoga so that they wouldn’t get separated, but after the whole disaster in the village, Ryoga had refused to follow along. 

Which meant that Ranma had to follow _him_ and steer him in the right direction, while also keeping an ear out for the cries of “kill!”, and _also_ trying to figure out what to do with his life, now that he was alone.

If he was being honest, the distraction helped keep him from focusing too much on what had happened with his old man.

And fighting with Ryoga over directions had helped keep him from thinking about everything else that had happened, since.

Fortunately, the girl—whose name was apparently ‘Shampoo’, of all things—didn’t seem to be able to recognize him or Ryoga in their uncursed forms. _Un_ fortunately, it seemed as if there were way more deep puddles, sudden rainstorms, unstable bridges, and buckets of laundry water being thrown out of windows than he remembered having seen in all his life leading up to now. Half the time he thought they were safe, they’d round a corner to walk right past a busted garden sprinkler or fire hydrant, and then into the path of a very angry and heavily bandaged girl bristling with all sorts of weapons. The giant maces were bad enough, but she had started to bust out spears, halberds, swords, and even bombs on a couple occasions.

There were other things working in their favor, though.

Once, Ryoga had pulled him down beneath a porch to hide as Shampoo ran past; Ranma couldn’t help but whisper that he hadn’t even heard her coming.

“She smells weird,” Ryoga replied once it seemed like the coast was clear, scratching his nose.

Ranma simply stared in silence.

“We haven’t exactly had a lot of voluntary baths, ourselves,” he eventually said, when Ryoga didn’t say anything more.

Ryoga flushed, and pushed Ranma away. “Not like that, jerk! She smells all herbal and medicinal. Probably got some kind of salves under all that, after I….”

Whoops, Ranma thought. Here comes Gloomy Ryo again. Wasn’t Ranma the one who had an excuse to be depressed? Of course, thinking about that just made him feel worse, because it reminded him of why he should be depressed.

He rolled over in the dirt, bumping back into Ryoga.

“S’not your fault,” he mumbled, leaning against the other boy so that their backs touched partially. “You didn’t have the hang of that body yet, we’re _still_ trying to figure out what we can and can’t do with the curses.”

Ryoga made a noncommittal noise that might’ve been a, “guess so.”

“Seriously,” Ranma insisted, reaching out his arms. They looked a lot shorter. 

For once, he’d managed to get splashed when Ryoga stayed dry, and in the dim light from outside, he could just about see the difference in the size and length. Especially for a martial artist, it was really hard to get used to your body being a different shape, your limbs being different lengths. Everything weighed wrong; not just the total, but the overall balance. “I’m still having trouble with telling how far I need to reach for stuff.”

After a long silence from halfway under Ranma, Ryoga spoke up. “You’re doing it again, you know.”

“What?” Ranma asked, jerking up and staring down at his companion.

“The ‘watashi’ thing,” Ryoga replied.

“Shit, really?” Ranma asked. 

After that, it came up again a few more times. When he had the time to be introspective, Ranma guessed that it had started not long after they’d first started dodging Shampoo. That had been the first time that he and Ryoga had really had much at all to talk about beyond what Ranma had been dwelling on at Jusenkyo. If he was being honest, it was the first time he’d felt like talking _at all_ , about anything. 

And there’d been the disguises they tried using.

Surprisingly, those had worked pretty well. Dressing Ryoga’s Asura form up to look like the other faces were just a mass of hair hidden under a headscarf, inside a bonnet, or beneath a fancy hat took a bit of doing, but putting himself into a disguise as this or that random girl was simple enough. And if Shampoo couldn’t recognize that their uncursed forms were the same people, she seemed just as unable to recognize them in different outfits and hairstyles. To Ranma’s great surprise, this part of China had a large enough population of natural redheads that Shampoo even grabbed the wrong person a couple of times.

The biggest test had come that time they’d been hiding among a tour group from Japan, and Shampoo was looking through the crowd. Ranma wasn’t sure how much the Chinese girl understood; from the death oaths she’d been screaming, she must have picked up at least _some_ Japanese. And the way he figured it, part of getting a disguise right was _acting_ the part.

So, he made a point of switching his pronouns when talking to people around him, depending on which form he or she happened to have taken on. While Ranma begrudginly admitted that he mixed it up now and then and used _watashi_ in his male form, Ryoga seemed to have a much harder time of using anything other than his usual macho speech. Ranma felt like he was constantly having to subtly prod him each time he messed up. 

Eventually, he got tired of it, and resolved to ask him. 

And then he decided against it, as Ryoga spilled the hot water from a campfire over his head, and returned to being a a male human with only one face. Ranma watched as Ryoga pulled away the latest disguise, a fancy European-styled hat with a sort of veil wrapping around the sides, and a matching cape that had hidden his extra arms. 

It took him a bit more effort to remove the dress.

“Here, let me help you,” Ranma insisted, suddenly conscious of how high her voice was, and how much taller Ryoga was. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “and then get me some water, too. You used it all up, ya slob.”

“Fine, whatever,” Ryoga mumbled through fabric, stuck halfway out of the dress. As usual, Ranma had led the work of the disguises, which meant that Ryoga hadn’t bothered to learn how the garment actually went on and off.

“Yer shoulders and chest are still too broad in this form,” Ranma said, as she carefully undid the buttons that clasped the dress at the back. She gave Ryoga’s back a smack as she tugged the garment down instead of up, and he twisted back to gave her a look she couldn’t place. “What? Even with six arms, that cursed form still has the shape that dresses were made for.”

To explain, she gestured at her own body, and the big jerk had the gall to act embarassed. Like he didn’t have a curse that turned him girl-type, too? And freakier, at that. She huffed, and turned away. “So how’s about that hot water?”

“Yeah, sure,” Ryoga replied, pausing to get his outer shirt out of his bag. He’d been wearing his pants and an undershirt beneath the dress, on his own insistence. That had meant Ranma had to find an especially long dress, since pants under dresses was definitely not the style around there.

By the time Ryoga had gotten the water and heated it up, Ranma was feeling tired. Not sleepy, or even exhausted, just tired. Life had been very tiring lately, and she couldn’t bring herself to keep up the energy throughout the night if they were safe. Ryoga had gotten good at lighting smokeless fires, and Ranma had learned how to spot places where the light of a camp wouldn’t be noticed by an Amazon warrior hunting the countryside for the two of them.

“Still feels weird,” Ryoga said as he brought the water over to Ranma, testing the heat with his fingertip. He set it down in front of her, and Ranma sat up and dunked her head into the wide pot. Either he waited for her to come back up as she swished her hair around in the hot water, taking the opportunity to rinse some of the grime of travel out, or she tuned out anything else he said between the sound of the water and the relieving feel of something remotely like a bath. 

“What does?” she asked, coming up and feeling the weirdness in her throat as she found her natural form’s natural register again. After a long enough time in one form, she found it was hard to get used to the way natural speaking felt in the other one.

“You know, traveling together,” Ryoga replied, tossing her a reasonably clean towel to dry off with. “Considering I came out here to challenge you to a fight after you ran off.”

Ranma was about to respond about how she _hadn’t_ run off, she’d waited three whole days, and then her old man….

She flopped onto the ground and curled in on herself.

Shameful. She could hear his voice now, which hurt half just because he wasn’t really there, and half because she knew what he’d say if he was. Acting like a blubbering little girl just because daddy wasn’t around any more? She— _he_ grit his teeth, and tried to push the thoughts out, rolling over to face away from the campfire, and Ryoga.

It wasn’t like her father hadn’t _taught_ her— _him, him_ all of this stuff about disguises and getting away from people who were after you for stupid reasons. It wasn’t like he’d ever all been that brave or manly himself, even by his own standards. 

Somewhere in the back of his head, there was a memory he felt like he could _almost_ touch, his father’s voice saying Ranma would be a ‘man among men’. It made his right hand feel weird, like there was something grimy on it, and he flexed the fingers. He couldn’t even remember how many times the greedy old crook had said things like that, and then turned around and proved himself a bigger coward than anyone else.

The kind of coward who went and left his only child all alone in the world.

His thoughts went that way for longer than he would care to admit, before he realized the warmth at his back was Ryoga laying next to him, and the feeling on his shoulder was Ryoga’s hand, gently clasped.

Ranma shifted and rolled onto his back to look up in the same direction Ryoga had been. The stars had come out above, the Milky Way dimly visible this far out from towns and cities. He turned and looked to Ryoga in the starlight, and thought about other things.

By the time he _did_ work up the nerve to talk about the pronouns thing, they were sitting in a fast food restaurant, having first bought a couple of hot teas just for the water. Now, they were taking turns fighting over what was left of a bucket of fried chicken. Ranma remembered passing through Beijing on the way west, and seeing the still new-looking KFC there. He guessed by the taste of the meal that it had been successful enough to spawn imitators even this far out.

“I dunno, it’s just… it feels really weird, pretending to be a girl.”

Ranma was dead silent for a good while before answering, though he didn’t realize it was quite so long as to justify Ryoga startling.

“I don’t figure it’s pretending to be a girl,” he said, feeling like his voice was coming from somewhere deep and hollow inside, ignoring Ryoga’s little jump. “It’s just, you know, there’s things girls can do that guys can’t get away with. I figure, if I’m stuck like this sometimes, at least I can try some of that stuff.”

“Yeah, well, you’re still human.” Ryoga said, looking away towards the wall before turning back with a strange expression. “And didn’t you do that thing in the school play?”

Ranma blushed at the memory. For one of the brief periods when Genma had let him attend school properly, Ranma had been at a school for boys. 

Which meant that _someone_ had to play the female roles when the school put on a production of _The Man Who Turned Into A Stick_. Due in part to his already long hair and what the other boys called “pretty boy” looks, Ranma had been convinced to join in the role of a rebellious young woman.

The memory turned sour as Ranma remembered how furious his father had been when he found out.

“Yeah, well, but then _Dad_ ….” he muttered. 

Ryoga reached out to pat Ranma’s shoulder.

“Look on the bright side, then. You can dress in drag all you want, now that he’s gone,” he said, with the dumbest grin Ranma had ever seen on his face.

Ranma fixed him with the most withering stare he could muster, but Ryoga didn’t seem to notice. After what felt like an eternity of Ryoga smiling at him, Ranma flopped his head onto the table between them.

“My old man’s gone,” he said into the greasy-smelling surface, “and you want me to be happy because it means I can put on girls’ clothes?”

“Well,” Ryoga replied, sounding put-off, “if you _want_ to. I mean, it’s _your_ thing, not mine.”

Ranma sighed.

It wasn’t like he wanted to be a girl or anything. He’d just as soon be rid of the stupid curse, but the guide had said something about it not having been a long enough time. It was more annoying than he could put into words, being forced into a body at odds with how he was feeling.

Well, how he was feeling most of the time. _Some_ of the time, maybe.

“You think I wanna be stuck looking like a girl _all of the time?_ ” he asked Ryoga, and the universe, and himself.

“Then, do you want to look like boy all of the time?” came the response.

“I don’t want that either!” Ranma said, before his brain could catch up with his words. He slapped a hand over his mouth, and then slowly drew it down as the words he’d said echoed in his brain. “I… _don’t_ want to be a guy, all the time?”

“Sound like gray area, neither man nor woman.”

“That’s a _thing? _” Ranma asked, and stared open-mouthed at Ryoga, who was staring over his head.__

__And then he realized it wasn’t Ryoga who had been speaking._ _

__Ranma turned to look where Ryoga had been looking._ _

__Shampoo was standing between them and the exit, leaning on a sword. The rest of the restaurant had cleared out._ _

__“Ni hao. Maybe we talk now?” she said, waving with a free hand. “No kill, I think.”_ _


	7. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between short chapters! Things just got really _stuck_ and i couldn't progress. Well, that, and things have been hectic at work. Thanks to everyone hanging on for more!

“Turns out the laws about regaining her honor by killing the opponent who defeated her,” Ranma explained, “ _also_ give her the option to resolve it by marriage.”

Akane felt herself flush, and she looked to Ryoga.

“Because,” she asked, “you’re a boy?” 

Ryoga sighed, and looked at Ranma. “Not exactly, huh?”

Ranma scratched his head, and smiled sheepishly at Shampoo— _Shan Pu_ , Akane mentally corrected, emphasizing the separation of the sounds in her head.

“Yeah, turns out that a thousands-of-years-old law can be kinda progressive about gender and junk. They’ve got some new-fangled ideas about how many people can be married at once,” Ranma explained, gesturing in a triangular motion to indicate lines between both himself and Ryoga to Shan Pu.

Shan Pu sniffed. “This is very much old-fashioned by Nǚjié zú standards, it is the rest of the world which is behind. Marriage is not just between one woman and one man, if both wish it to be so. Nor only between woman and man. Nor _only_ woman or man.”

At this, she looked to Ranma, who seemed to suddenly find her gaze both difficult to meet, and the only interesting thing in the room, if Akane was any judge. She still didn’t get the meaning behind that, or what Ranma had brought up in his story, earlier. 

No, she thought to herself, she had an inkling of it. That was the kind of old thinking she’d been stuck in a few months ago. Maybe if she’d met Ranma then—forget about the whole fiancee business, she’d probably have torn into him just because of his curse, with how she used to think.

The words, _’thank goodness for having some sense literally knocked into me, right?’_ surfaced inside her, amidst many others that she didn’t have the wherewithal to address in that moment. She looked at Ranma, and tried the question that had come to the front of her mind amidst the chaos. Or at least, as near to it as she could articulate, with how ridiculous the whole situation was, and how limited her understanding was. “So, are you— _do you_ —are you a kind of a….”

“And after that we went back to her village to work things out,” Ryoga said abruptly, the words rushing out like a torrent as the boy positioned himself part-way between her and Ranma. “Isn’t that right, Ranma, buddy?”

Ranma nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess with everything else going on, the Jusen— _Zhòuquánxiāng_ Guide had seen to my old man’s funeral. Suppose he felt guilty about it all or something… I figure I owe him a lot, even though.”

He looked out towards the yard, and was silent for a moment. Shan Pu picked up the thread of explanation he’d let drop.

“We spoke to elders at my village and received permission for 爱人 to take father’s remains to bring them back to Japan, and made preparations to travel safely. Ranma did not know where family grave was located, but the postcard with your address was in the bags left behind. And so, we came here, to find out what to do.”

“So,” Akane began, turning things over in her head and trying to sort out which of the many strange new details to tackle first. She settled on Shan Pu. “The fact that I won….”

Shan Pu cocked her head to the side. Again, something seemed off about the way her bangs fell on her brow. Then the other shoe dropped, and she clapped her hands in recognition.

“Aiyaa! No, I am not going to swear to kill you,” she explained, looking slightly flushed. “I insulted you, you challenged, I accepted, you defeated in fair fight. Is— _it is not to be worried about._ Everything is settled.”

That was relieving, as far as Akane was concerned. The match was closer than she wanted to consider, and she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up in more serious conditions.

“Unless,” Shan Pu said with a wink, more towards Ranma and Ryoga than herself, “you are the kind of girl who wants a different reward.”

“Shacchan, we just met—” Ranma began, at the same time Ryoga started to sputter wordlessly.

“Joke, a joke,” Shan Pun said, waving it off.

It was all a lot to consider. Too much, really; Akane felt herself fall back onto the floor in exhaustion.

“This is crazy,” she said, and then forced herself upright to stare at the newcomers. “You realize this whole thing is crazy, right? ”

“It is all true, though,” Shan Pu said, sniffing. She gestured along the side of her head, and then lifted her hair slightly to reveal a wig taped over skin that showed the scars of burns, and patchy purple hair that was buzzed short.

Akane cringed, and reflexively grabbed at her own hair. Yet another kind of loss, one she couldn’t begin to imagine how she would feel about in the same position. “No, I—wow, that’s awful. I didn’t doubt that part, I mean… Ranma, you do know why—didn’t your dad tell you, before…?”

She saw Ranma’s expression darken, still facing away. “Nah, he didn’t tell me a lot, just where to go and how to fight.”

“I—” Akane began, and felt her throat catch. “Ranma, I’m really sorry for your loss, _believe me_ , I know how hard it is to lose a parent, and how much time you wish you still had.”

“No,” Ranma sighed, and slapped the dojo floor in frustration. “That ain’t it. I mean, he literally didn’t tell me things. Just decided everything on his own.”

His gaze turned to her, starting to look more inquisitive, or maybe even suspicious.

“Why?”

Akane drew herself up.

“It wasn’t,” she began, and started again, “my father told us, when we were first expecting you, you see…”

The three other teenagers stared in silence, waiting for her to continue.

“It’s this whole stupid thing that a girl can’t be the heir to Musabetsu Kakuto,” she grumbled, more to herself than as part of an explanation. “Your dad, and my dad, they decided—before we were even born _it’s so stupid_ , I’m sorry, I know you just lost him but—”

“Tendo-san,” Ryoga began, and Akane felt the words burst out like a sudden downpour.

“ _Our dads wanted one of us to marry you so that you could be the heir to the school and I’ve spent the past three months figuring you were some kind of jerk and that I was going to have to prove I was good enough to not need to marry you so that I could inherit the school on my own, so I’ve been training harder than ever and then _he_ showed up and made my life a living hell, and now you’re here and I realize that everything is so terrible for you and I don’t even know if my dad will still want to go through with it but you just told me that you’re basically married to a girl you met in China and—”_

Akane felt the frustration carry her up onto her feet and outside, where she released the emotions into a training dummy, along with a scream. 

Three months of waiting and worrying that had turned into a sore spot somewhere deep inside. 

Three months where she’d channeled that frustration into being better, faster, stronger. 

Three months in which she’d beaten opponents both conventional and strange, all the while adapting her training to meet the challenges they presented, or deal with _him_. 

Three months all tangled up in the fact that the boy she’d been dreading meeting had been dealing with a sorrow she’d long since had to bury.

And on top of that, dealing with maybe not even being a boy? 

Amidst the falling splinters, she turned back to look at Ranma, Shan Pu, and Ryoga.

“Right!” she grunted, and faced each of them in turn, putting on her best smile. “I sure just dumped a lot on you, Saotome-san. I know you’re already dealing with the loss of your dad, so don’t worry about any of that, _really._ ”

Ranma offered no response, just nodding slowly, mouth agape.

“Sham—Shan Pu,” she continued, catching herself, “I don’t understand where you’re coming from, but I guess you don’t understand most things about me, either. I hope that we can let bygones be bygones.”

The other girl smiled. “Maybe if you please teach me to use special technique? I know someone who is much much too fond of jumping high to attack, it might be most useful.”

Akane nodded, and then turned to Ryoga. She had less of an idea of what to say. “Hibiki-san, I… I really admire you for doing so much, for coming so far. I hope that I can make a friend like you are for Ranma, some day.”

She bowed low.

And then she felt something touching her on the top of the head.

When she looked up, Ranma was holding a small piece of rubble from the training dummy, and wearing a wry grin.

“It was in your hair.”


End file.
